Blue: Three Colors Trilogy -- What Makes This Movie Great? (Episode 75)
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- Опубліковано 8 жов 2020
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Kryzyztof Kieslowski's Three Colors Trilogy is world-renowned. Why? What makes it great?
Let's answer those questions by starting first with the first movie in the trilogy, "Blue," starring Juliette Binoche.
This video reviews and analyzes Kieslowski's "Blue." I argue that it's more a lyric than a movie, a meditation on grief and liberty, two paradoxical values that don't seem to fit together, and yet the movie shows their relationship.
The video analyzes the movie's use of several key images, including the color blue, music, bungee-jumping, and water.
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For me, the things that makes this film so special. 1. The idea of Liberty and the way Julie is liberated by the tragedies which open the experience. 2. The way the color is used to unify the thoughts, from the blue swimming pool, the blue stones of the mobile, the blue spotlights which play upon Julie's face,. 3. Blue in its sense of being a melancholy state. 4. The way she changes throughout the film, beginning with her isolation and separation from the world, and the way she transforms and becomes emotionally re-integrated by the end so that she can have a loving relationship once again, and she can finally embrace the idea of realizing her husband's unfinished life's work.
excellent comment, thank you.
You got that from the commentary on the DVD.
Juliette Binoche declined Jurassic Park to be in Three Colors Blue, just shows how much the script meant to her.
good info. I cannot imagine her helping that movie much. Great choice on her part.
@@LearningaboutMovies That movie was a hit regardless who was casted. The original cast was Harrison Ford, Sigourney Weaver (1st choice and Binoche was asked next), and Sean Connery.
Fun fact: I went to the cinema when it went out, willing to see Blue. Jurassic Park was showing too and the lady at the booth told me "A ticket for Jurassic Park?
-Er...no? Blue, please?"
Her face was priceless
One of the elements I haven’t heard many people talk about alongside the idea of personal freedom being isolating, is that it can also be quite selfish.
I’m thinking particularly of a few scenes that seemed to be included to show how she was choosing not to get involved with the pain of other people and the consequences that could result.
Though technically she may not have been driving at the beginning, the family do not stop to help a hitchhiker and yet when they crash he appears willing to help them when they crash.
When she moves into her new apartment, she witnesses a man being beat up by a group of others and when he comes into her apartment, banging on doors to try to find a place of refuge, she stays silent.
And finally one of the scenes where she is so engrossed with her own thoughts that she is sitting on a bench with her eyes closed to the rest of the world, the director shows a woman come up and struggle to reach high enough to recycle a bottle, and because she has her eyes closed she misses the opportunity to engage with and help this old lady.
I think this all ties directly to the final scene where the music which is being composed throughout the film is paired with the Biblical lines about love being the greatest of the virtues and that if you have all the other virtues, “but have not love, it is like a hollow gong”
thank you.
Great observations. It ties with the ending of the film as she eventually begins to connect again with her neighbor, Olivier and the mistress. And the Corinthians verse as well.
I first saw this trilogy about eight years ago and liked all the films. I decided to watch them again recently, and while my view of White and Red is still pretty much the same, the rewatch really heightened Blue in my mind, and it is my favorite. The music in this film is absolutely essential to understanding it--it contributes to so much more than just the plot and supports the themes in the film. The main theme, Song for the Unification of Europe, takes its lyrics from the Greek text of 1 Corinthians 13, wherein Paul writes about the qualities of love and says that of the three spiritual virtues--faith, hope, and love--the greatest of all is love. Julie has love with her husband and daughter, but when they die, the pain of loss is too great, and she decided to cut herself off from all others--to free herself from the burden of pain that can come from loving someone. But just as one note by itself cannot make a song, so one life lived in isolation cannot find meaning in the greatest of all virtues. One note ends, but it doesn't really end, it connects to the next note, and its music lives on all throughout the song. Though Julie wants to separate herself from her past, it keeps coming back, and she is inevitably unified with the lives of others. As Song for the Unification of Europe plays at the end, we see brief shots of all the people in the film whose lives Julie has touched, and it becomes obvious then that Julie is no longer the single note she thought she wanted to be, but is now intricately bound up in the interconnectedness of human relationships.
excellent comment as always. thankyou!
The ending of red blows me away every time I see it. So deep.
Beautiful interpretation. It’s never a single note, we have to come back.
Such a great analysis! Thank you! I watched Blue last night for the first time and had to take a long late-night walk to really absorb it. One thing that you didn't mention that I have been thinking about is the role of the mistress/her being pregnant with Julie's husband's baby. It was like a wrench was thrown into the plot. Prior to this discovery, everything that Julie did post-crash felt, to an extent, entirely in her control with her newly found liberation. As we watched how she handled this new element, it seemed to be a kind of catalyst for her to truly let go, something that she had already done physically, by moving away and selling her belongings but had not yet done emotionally, I don't believe. She became more involved in finishing her husband's composition, gave her house to the mistress (talk about generous!), continued her own affair seemingly guilt-free. All of the anger and frustration she initially had just completely dissipated and she was allowed to make peace with her pre-crash life by accepting its flaws. It was very unexpected but equally beautiful.
thank you. well said. you probably will also enjoy the other two movies in the trilogy, White and Red, if you have not seen them.
Great point with the mistress
Wow great analysis as always Josh! It made me think of the poem of The grand inquisitor in Dostoevsky's Brother Karamazov in wich it is suggested that we are willing to give up our liberty in order to gain more serenity. In fact, less liberty, equals less responsibility, less things that can possibly go wrong and, paradoxically, more control. Dostoevsky take as an example monks who live in a monastery, reducing greatly their liberty of action, but gaining a lot of tranquillity through this controled, routine and simple life. In short, I mention this to emphasize the fact that freedom is not this transcendent panacea that one ordinarily conceives of. I think this is one of the messages from kieslowski's film.
Thanks for the thoughtful video, can't wait to see what you'll have to say about white and red!
thank you -- excellent reference!
Exactly my thoughts. It’s related to that saying going around online, “Discipline is freedom!”
Watched this last night for the first time and was just in awe. The use of color for the representation of emotions, the use of music to convey her current mental state. The way the score was used to set moods throughout the scenes. The lead actress was just amazing and really put you in her shoes.
This movie has just enough plot to keep you interested, but just enough ambiguity to let your mind wonder with Julie and wonder how she's feeling throughout all this. 10/10 movie honestly it was perfect film.
Great analysis
@@realsamhyde just might not be your flavor
the things that i liked the most is that she never sleeps instead she spend the night in the pool(i think it's liberty from time) but always in the pool she get her head out of the water and sees light, then she's back into water( i think the light stands for the truth she trying to avoid) but her emotions are always there
The pool is such an interesting device. She doesn’t swim there lanes but instead chooses to defy the boundaries and swims across the pool in the same way that she defies cultural constraints throughout the film in order to honor her own freedom. It’s also the place she works through her grief. We know she cries while she swims and her tears washed away the water. In that way, it seems to be part of her eventual rebirth as a free woman.
There was one scene that made feel something the way i felt it many years before. AMAZING
excellent!
Watched it four or five times since purchasing the Criterion box. One very interesting feature of the music is that the composer of the music for Blue, Zbigniew Preisner, wrote one of his most memorable works, "Requiem for My Friend" in remembrance of the death of Kieślowski
excellent, thank you.
I just saw Blue and White the past two nights, and I'm gonna watch Red tonight after work. I've also watched your videos on Blue and White, and I think they're really helpful at teasing out some of the themes in the films. I can't wait to dive into your back catalog.
Kieslowski is such a brilliant filmmaker. I've seen Dekalog before this, but what I always come back to with his work is how aesthetically rich it is. Blue is probably my favorite of the trilogy this far, even though White is fantastic as well, for this reason. I love Blue's ending, how we see everyone's faces and what emotions they express. The final shot floored me.
I also love Blue's music, especially when the film fades to black and the oboe pierces the heart.
This film might be the best depiction of grief I've seen in a movie. I love it
thank you very much.
Great video, Josh. I, too, picked up heavily on the free-floating tv programs.
Julie is presented with freedom against her will, when she wasn't ready... and she slowly discovers that even though she has probably always secretly desired it... it's not what she wants. She has to discover that freedom ALSO includes the freedom to love and connect and work, the freedom to let ONESELF be as one is, in Julie's case talented, generous, attentive. Swimming against the pool lanes, destroying the music notation, not signing the petition... these small rebellions isolate her, erase her - like her mother's memories - until she reaches a kind of Zero Point. As the film progresses, she learns that she can be free even while living a connected, engaging life.
thank you very much.
Great analysis for a brilliant film! I'm happy to see you covering this one. There is some melancholic beauty throughout the film, like the fact that she knows that her husband was having an affair (not sure of the details, it's been a while since I last saw this film) and she can't be angry with him. Or she can be angry but there is no way for her to transfer her anger towards him directly, she has to live with the fact that there was something that she would want to be able to say that is weighing on her. Accepting that, despite being difficult and heartbreaking is somewhat liberating.
she knows for sure about the affair later in the movie, yet I sense that she intuits it much earlier, maybe the entire time. That's right about the anger -- excellent!
i watched this movie a week ago and it really touched my heart cause i have been dealing with a personal tragedy myself for more than 5 years now i'm escaping from it all the time but i feel like i'm attached to the rope like the t.v scene it really hurts ...i loved ur explanation it's first video i saw for u ..keep up u are amazing
thank you very much.
Great movie review essay... Thank you for sharing
Thanks for watching!
Thanks Josh! I do like this movie tho hadnt seen it in awhile. I honestly think your analysis may make me appreciate it more than I initially remembered. Actually just watched Three Colors Red this past Monday for the 1st time - look forward to your take.
I have really come to appreciate Zbigniew Preisner's work the more I've heard him & he does excellent work here. I only just learned that the amazing piece Lacrimosa (later used effectively in Tree of Life) was part of a work that was meant for Kieslowski to use but served more as a memorial to him when he died.
I didn't know that Lacrimosa was for Kieslowski. Remarkable!
I first watched blue as a confused adolescent, changed my life I watched them all blue is my favourite the ending of red made me cry and laugh a brilliant trilogy that is maybe more relevant now more than ever.
I just discovered your videos, and definitely love your analysis!
This movie is great, it’s amazing the nostalgia that you can feel from watching it so definitely should be on a list of the best nostalgic films of all time
Thanks a lot and keep up the great work! Greetings from Mexico
Viva Mexico! Thank you and welcome.
Thanks for the review, man! Great work!
Thank you.
You're doing a great job Josh! Really inspired by your content and trying to create something on similar lines, in my native tongue. Looking forward to your videos on White and Red. Cheers! 🙂
thank you! best of success to you.
Thank you for this video. Just saw it for the first time last night and I’m making my way through the trilogy this week. Next up: White. Love the lens of liberty and boundaries that you highlighted here. The one other theme that strikes me is that both Julie and her husband had other lovers in the marriage. Growing up and living in the Puritanically founded U.S., the idea of discovering an unknown lover would lead me to think the character would experience immediate rage and resentment. Instead she’s asked several times if she already knew, and while hurt, this knowledge offers her a new kind of liberty. She can give away her home to someone who should have it and she can return to her former lover with the knowledge that she hasn’t committed a one-sided betrayal of her husband. It also made me reflect on the liberty that French culture offers compared to American culture as it relates to the societal expectations of monogamy (though I don’t think this was an intended extension of the liberty theme from the filmmaker).
you're welcome.
Your point on liberation I think rings true with the female tenant below Julie. She is a different part of the same ideas, being a woman who is sleeping with many partners and how the rest of the complex puts their moral expectation on her and Julie in the scene to sign the release of tenant form
thank you.
Excellent. Brilliant analysis.
Thank you
thank you very much.
This is real good. It puts words on some emotions that I felt, it's liberating:-)
thank you.
I saw the movie yesterday. Juliette’s performance is impressive! I don’t get it why she left the mistress money and house. Did she hate the mistress at all? Also, was the homeless guy playing his dead husband’s music in the end of the video? Last but not the least, what’s the point of having the kid who picked up the necklace at the accident scene in the movie?
yes, to the question of the homeless man.
I forget the other two things you ask about. hopefully someone will come along and answer!
Simply put, Julie leaves her house to Sandrine (the husband's mistress) because throughout it all, Julie is a compassionate woman. Leaving Sandrine the house and her husband's fortune allows Sandrine to have a future with her unborn child and also preserves her husband's legacy in biological form.
The boy is simply a passerby who witnessed the accident and was able to deliver the necklace to Julie. While their meeting is brief, Julie leaves an impression on the boy, who is featured in the climactic final sequence as someone also connected to Julie through the necklace.
Haven’t seen these videos since they were released and we had the DVD’s, where can we view them now?
Such a good analysis man! I just finished watching this trilogy and want to go back and watch it again for all the rich symbolism. Not much reviews on UA-cam on this so thanks.
Thank you. There's a White and a Red video also on this channel.
@@LearningaboutMovies Basically the movie is about love- it proves that we can't live without one
finally finished blue while going through my own personal tragedy
I'm very sorry.
This is my ultimate cult movie forever. It captured me whole for so many reasons.
Saw this movie when it first came out and I've probably have rewatched it more than 20 times since...
Best trilogy ever... second place is Millennium from Sweden
In Italian we have a saying: “Solitude is a strange freedom”.
Great video 👍
thank you.
My favorite movie
Channel should be bigger my dude
thank you very much.
3:03 -- Well, the Catholic Church states that sins can be forgiven through Confession, so liberation from past sins can be achieved in this life.
Great movie
amen.
Can you remember the scene where a woman drags her hand across a concrete wall as she walked along it
I do not. Is it in this movie?
Yes, it was Juliette Binoche’s character
I remember it. Julie is walking away from her home and drags her hand across the stone wall as she leaves. The housekeeper comments on her inability to show emotion at first, “I cry because you do not.” I think it signifies Julie’s desire to feel something, to grieve. Which she eventually does.
Yes. That scene is something.
1:13 At one point, Julie says that "relationships are traps." Your suggestion that Julie is "liberated" from her familial ties, relationships, and obligations is interesting. That she is, in turn, left bound to her grief in the aftermath of the accident is poignant because Julie turns inward, cutting herself off from the rest of the world.
It's those things that bind us, that tie us to our communities, and our human connections that give many of our lives meaning and purpose. Julie is reintegrated into human society through newly bonds of romantic love, and the life of an unborn child--the product of a marital infidelity. Maybe it's to much to say that by forming new human connections, Julie is freed from her grief; she may always live with the memory of it, as well as the loss of her husband and child.
I've always admired the inclusion of the passage from 1st Corinthians in the original Koine Greek in the finale of Blue. The word "agape" has been translated as "charity" in the King James version, and "love" in more recent translations. Yes, it's a kind of"love", but I think the original meaning of the word hints at what Kieslowski is after.
The part about the Europe is speculative…I doubt that Kieslowski reflected on whether a country is better off in EU…
Reading an artwork does not necessitate needing to read the mind of its creator. An artwork tends to sync with its time.
obviously liberty suffered from from PTSD and it was amazing how Binoche embodied all the sorrow and grief that liberty expressed.. just a psychological masterpiece! ❤️
thank you.